Spoilers? Maybe a few details, but nothing too plot related. Not like it would matter with this movie.
Air Rage blatantly rips off the mid-air infiltration premise of Executive Decision. Ice-T leads a team of four "elite" commandos who wear baggy black shirts that we can only imagine must conceal invisible body armor as their idiotic tactics (similar to what 3rd graders use when playing Star Wars on the playground) lead them to absorb a hail of gunfire.
What entertained me the most about this flick was the use of look-alike has-been actors. You'll immediately recognize Cyril O'Reily as someone who once acted in a movie that you really liked, though it was so long ago that you probably won't be able to place it (it was Porky's). Here Cyril plays a decent knock-off of a Bill Paxton character. Most Hilarious is porker Gil Gerard, who's so fat that you will never recognize him as TV's Buck Rogers. Instead of evoking his mildly heroic character past, Gerard gives us a passable performance of the crusty fat tough guy persona, which was clearly imagineered for John Goodman. Finally, Alex Cord gives us a nice hybrid look-alike performance as a Chuck Connors/Kirk Douglas type. In the 10 years since New Jack City, Ice-T's acting has deteriorated remarkably. It's not acting so much as regurgitation of lines that he might have actually memorized.
One of the items that plays into this movie is a CD-ROM of classified information. It's being hand carried, and it's apparently and unbelievably not encrypted, despite the security-savvy aura of Gerard's NSA character. What a joke. I'm severely doubting that the information purported to be on the CD would ever even all be assembled into a portable format.
Despite being in a closed aircraft without silencers, the gunfire is about as loud as canned air, and causes nary a person to flinch, so apparently no foley budget. The assortment of weapons chosen is pretty funny. The flight attendant's use of a coffee pot is about the most realistic depiction of violence in the film. When she takes intuitively to the mini-Uzi pistol, which has got to be one of the worst pistol designs ever, that's just too stupid. A true elite team would carry MP-5s for this type thing or maybe SOCOMM .45s, or even customized Hi- Powers if they were really old school, or maybe something FN 5.7 if new school... The lame-o standard issue 92Fs are totally unbelievable, having lost most of their cool after Lethal Weapon I. The bad guys, supposedly experienced soldier of fortune types, have an assorted mixture of absurdity, like the aforementioned mini-Uzi pistol and a Tec-9 with the infamous non-functional barrel extender that isn't a silencer.
There was one touch of realism on which I would like to correct the other reviewers: The flight attendant and Ice-T did lower the craft to 10,000 feet for "breathable air" before they opened the door. And I also got the impression that the flight attendant was NOT able to get the door closed, that she basically just gave up on that point. As far as the landing, there was no mention of flaps until about 2 seconds before touchdown. Sigh.
Only the Dukes of Hazard eluding Roscoe P. Coltrane at the "pass" could shame this movie for use of stock footage. They obviously chose the incredible (and retired) SR-71 because they couldn't get stock of an F-117. Aside from the fact that they were mothballed already in 2001, let's also forget for a moment that the SR-71 is not a pure stealth aircraft in the sense of the B-2, and that at point blank range... Well, I'm no expert, but I'm having doubts as to whether it would be invisible on Radar.
As others have pointed out, the repeated references to "F-15s" when they were showing F -16s was laughable. Details of the 747 were pretty stupid. No airline would put that few passengers on a 747 to begin with, not to mention everything else that was idiotic about it. Pay attention to the use of exposed electrical wiring.
Wow. What a show. Catch it on Stars or something. Don't pay to rent it, but do watch it for laughs. In contention for worst movie ever, right up there with No Holds Barred, which at least had some originality.
Air Rage blatantly rips off the mid-air infiltration premise of Executive Decision. Ice-T leads a team of four "elite" commandos who wear baggy black shirts that we can only imagine must conceal invisible body armor as their idiotic tactics (similar to what 3rd graders use when playing Star Wars on the playground) lead them to absorb a hail of gunfire.
What entertained me the most about this flick was the use of look-alike has-been actors. You'll immediately recognize Cyril O'Reily as someone who once acted in a movie that you really liked, though it was so long ago that you probably won't be able to place it (it was Porky's). Here Cyril plays a decent knock-off of a Bill Paxton character. Most Hilarious is porker Gil Gerard, who's so fat that you will never recognize him as TV's Buck Rogers. Instead of evoking his mildly heroic character past, Gerard gives us a passable performance of the crusty fat tough guy persona, which was clearly imagineered for John Goodman. Finally, Alex Cord gives us a nice hybrid look-alike performance as a Chuck Connors/Kirk Douglas type. In the 10 years since New Jack City, Ice-T's acting has deteriorated remarkably. It's not acting so much as regurgitation of lines that he might have actually memorized.
One of the items that plays into this movie is a CD-ROM of classified information. It's being hand carried, and it's apparently and unbelievably not encrypted, despite the security-savvy aura of Gerard's NSA character. What a joke. I'm severely doubting that the information purported to be on the CD would ever even all be assembled into a portable format.
Despite being in a closed aircraft without silencers, the gunfire is about as loud as canned air, and causes nary a person to flinch, so apparently no foley budget. The assortment of weapons chosen is pretty funny. The flight attendant's use of a coffee pot is about the most realistic depiction of violence in the film. When she takes intuitively to the mini-Uzi pistol, which has got to be one of the worst pistol designs ever, that's just too stupid. A true elite team would carry MP-5s for this type thing or maybe SOCOMM .45s, or even customized Hi- Powers if they were really old school, or maybe something FN 5.7 if new school... The lame-o standard issue 92Fs are totally unbelievable, having lost most of their cool after Lethal Weapon I. The bad guys, supposedly experienced soldier of fortune types, have an assorted mixture of absurdity, like the aforementioned mini-Uzi pistol and a Tec-9 with the infamous non-functional barrel extender that isn't a silencer.
There was one touch of realism on which I would like to correct the other reviewers: The flight attendant and Ice-T did lower the craft to 10,000 feet for "breathable air" before they opened the door. And I also got the impression that the flight attendant was NOT able to get the door closed, that she basically just gave up on that point. As far as the landing, there was no mention of flaps until about 2 seconds before touchdown. Sigh.
Only the Dukes of Hazard eluding Roscoe P. Coltrane at the "pass" could shame this movie for use of stock footage. They obviously chose the incredible (and retired) SR-71 because they couldn't get stock of an F-117. Aside from the fact that they were mothballed already in 2001, let's also forget for a moment that the SR-71 is not a pure stealth aircraft in the sense of the B-2, and that at point blank range... Well, I'm no expert, but I'm having doubts as to whether it would be invisible on Radar.
As others have pointed out, the repeated references to "F-15s" when they were showing F -16s was laughable. Details of the 747 were pretty stupid. No airline would put that few passengers on a 747 to begin with, not to mention everything else that was idiotic about it. Pay attention to the use of exposed electrical wiring.
Wow. What a show. Catch it on Stars or something. Don't pay to rent it, but do watch it for laughs. In contention for worst movie ever, right up there with No Holds Barred, which at least had some originality.